


Daddy Issues

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Corpses, First Time, Fluff, Gen, In a manner of speaking, OC?, Probably never going to use her again, Uncle Sherlock, completely platonic, kidding, reconsidering career choices, there's no sex, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:29:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2509487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock invites his best friend's daughter to a crime scene. Maybe it was a bad idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daddy Issues

**Author's Note:**

> It was going to be a reader-insert, but I don't like them very much, so I created Willow in lieu of (Name) or (y/n) or (f/n) because that is just.
> 
> I get bored often. Love you. <3

“Want to come on a case?”

Willow choked her mouthful of water back into the cup and stared at her uncle incredulously. “Are you serious?”

He didn’t look up from the newspaper, but hummed affirmation, saying, “Yes. John and Mary are having a night in together and I figured you’d get bored. They probably will, too, but it was their idea, so I can’t help them out of the situation.”

Dumbfounded, she muttered numbly, “Dad’ll never let me go on a case with you. You know what he’s like.”

“Then don’t tell him you’re going on a case with me,” Sherlock stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You want me to lie to my parents?”

He sighed in frustration, slapped the paper down on the coffee table and stood. “Yes, I want you to lie to John and Mary. I have a crime scene to go to and they’re too busy  _socialising_ with each other to care, so I need your help.”

She grinned widely and asked, “When do we leave?”

“Now.”

Bursting into action, Willow raced to the kitchen to leave her cup in the sink, then ran upstairs to get her coat. She bumped into her father in the hallway and he asked, “What’s got you so excited?”

“Uncle Sherlock’s taking me to dinner!” she called as she rushed around him into her room.

John stood for a moment and stared after you, confused. “Alright, well, where are you going?”

She rushed back past him with one arm in her coat, hopping as she tried to pull her shoes on without stopping. “Angelo’s,” she shouted back as she hopped down the stairs, coat, scarf and one shoe successfully on.

She paused at the door to try and put the other on, but Sherlock grabbed her arm and hurried her out the door. “I’ll bring her back in a couple of hours, John. See you, Mary,” He called loudly into the house before slamming the door and rushing down the stairs and onto the street, where he called for a taxi. It wasn’t until she were on her way to New Scotland Yard that she managed to finish trying her shoes, an excited grin on her face.

 ~*~

Willow hurried upstairs without greeting her mother or father, the cool night breeze following her through the front door. Her uncle entered the house at a more sensible pace and glanced at the confused parents.

“What’s up with her?” John asked him, setting his wine glass down.

Sherlock merely shrugged, left for the kitchen and began rummaging in the fridge.

“Didn’t you eat at Angelo’s? That’s where you were taking her for dinner, right?”

The only response was the thump of the fridge door, a few beeps and the buzz of the microwave.

John sighed and looked at Mary. “I’ll deal with it. Just… make sure he doesn’t blow the place up by turning the microwave into an experiment,” he muttered, putting his half-full glass on the coffee table and standing with a stretch. Mary smiled that smile he loved and waved him off, taking another sip from her glass.

“Go be a father, John Watson,” she said, laughing lightly.

“Only if you’ll mother the other one, Mary Watson,” he replied as he leaned down and pecked her lips. It’s been over a decade and he still loved that name.  _Mary Watson._ It was the most beautiful sound in the world, rivaled only by Willow Sherlock Watson (the bastard had won a bet towards the end of Mary’s pregnancy and they had finally agreed to let him be their daughter’s name).

She smirked and glanced at the kitchen where the cluttering of plates and cutlery could be heard. “I’ll try my best, but no promises.”

He smiled and kissed her quickly once more before following his daughter to her room. When he arrived, the light was on but she was nowhere in sight. “Willow?” he called hesitantly, knocking on the doorframe. “Willow, are you in here?”

A small hiccup and sniffle gave away her presence and he stepped further into the room, gazing around for her. His eyes alighted on the closet, where the corner of a blanket was poking from under the door. “Willow?” he asked gently, knocking on the door.

“Dad?” She asked for his presence rather than his identity, her usually strong and confident voice uncertain and child-like. She pushed one of the doors open slightly so he could see a sliver of light cross a glassy blue eye and light on a silver tear, pooling between her eye and her nose. She was lying on her side, curled into the space below her hanging clothes.

“It’s alright, Willow, I’m here,” he reassured, passing his hand in for you to grasp. “What’s wrong, hey?”

She laughed shakily and shook her head, saying, “Nothing, it’s just hormones. My conscious mind knows that all I have to do is balance them, but one does not simply command hormones to be calm.”

He let out a chuckle and let her see his small grin, squeezing her hand gently. “What’s got you so wound up? What’s Sherlock done this time?”

She grinned back weakly and used her free hand to wipe one of her cheeks. “No, Uncle Sherlock’s fine. It’s just…” her sentence drifted off and her chin trembled ad another tear escaped.

Leaving the door as it was, John wrapped his other hand around the one he was grasping, rubbing the back soothingly. “It’s alright, Willow, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m here and so’s mum and so’s Uncle Sherlock.”

She hiccupped a sob and squeezed her eyes shut, grasping John’s hand as though to be certain of his words.

There was another minute of relative silence as John sat cross-legged in front of her hidden nest of blankets and pillows while she held his hand and cried quietly. She calmed herself by counting the seconds as they ticked by. At seventy-three, she opened her eyes again and asked quietly, “Could you go get Uncle Sherlock?”

He smiled gently and gave her hands one last squeeze before standing and walking to the door. Upon opening it, he bumped into the man himself, who had been reaching for the handle. There was a bit of a scuffle as he nearly dropped the plate, but the meat pie slid off, despite his efforts, landing on the wooden floor with a light  _thump._ He glared at it, then at John, before thrusting the plate and cutlery into his hands and picking it up gingerly.

“Great, now I’ll have to go make her another one. Well done, John,” he muttered as he placed the unfortunate pie back on the plate John held ready.

“No, no, I’ll take care of this. You go talk to her. She asked to see you,” John replied as he stepped around his old friend, giving him a little shove towards the still-open door before continuing back downstairs with the pie.

Sherlock glared after him for a moment before sighing and stepping into her room, closing the door gently behind him. Catching sight of her peeking through the slightly-ajar door of her closet, he gave a slight frown and took John’s former position outside.

“I heard you wanted to see me?” he murmured and she nodded meekly. He scratched the back of his neck and looked away, saying, “If you don’t want to go on another case, that’s fine. It was a bit much, I’ll admit.”

Her eyes widened and she began to shake her head halfway through. “No, it’ll be fine, I promise! I still want to go on cases!” she reassured quickly, keeping her voice low lest mum or dad hear.

He raised an eyebrow and glanced meaningfully at the cupboard she was hiding in.

“It was just that one, you know? With the dad and all, I couldn’t help but think…” she trailed off again.

“Yes? What?” Sherlock tried to ask gently, but confusion laced his voice, causing it to come out more brusquely than he intended.

She knew to ignore his mistaken tone and stared at the knee of his pants, trying to stop the tears again. “What… what if it  _was_ dad?” she gasped quietly as she lost the battle against her emotions, tears beginning to fall once more.

“I would  _never_  let that happen,” Sherlock reassured her firmly and she nodded, wiping at her face.

“Uncle Sherlock, can you tell me a story?’ she asked in a whisper, not meeting his eyes.

He was surprised, but nodded all the same. “What would you like to hear?”

She was silent for a long moment before she asked, quieter than before, “What would you have done if, before mum and dad met, dad was murdered on one of your cases?”

He looked at her in surprise and didn’t speak for a long while. She glanced at his face, only to find him lost in his thoughts, so she waited. Eventually, he shifted into a position which didn’t crush his tailbone into the floor and he began to speak.

“Once upon a time, there was a very Ridiculous Man. He was ridiculous because he was clever and he thought being clever meant he was better than everyone else. However, this created a paradoxical effect as, in reality, this made him a very stupid man. He didn’t realise this for many years and spent a lot of his life simply proving to others how superior his intellect was, distancing himself from any who could have been his friends.

“He was alone in the world, living in self-inflicted solitude. He thought this was the way things were meant to be. He thought he knew happiness. He believed the company of other people offered him nothing and so he never sought it out. Instead of enjoying the beauty of life, he surrounded himself with the dead. He was fascinated, enraptured. He found pleasure in discovering subtle truths hidden in plain sight and used his skills of observation to condemn those who thought it their place to bring death. He did not do this because he was a good man. He did it because he liked winning, triumphing over those who thought themselves stronger and better than other humans. He did not recognise the irony of such a sadistic hobby.

“It took years of dissatisfaction and a lot of chance, but one day, the Ridiculous Man met someone who managed to drag him back up from the depths of isolation. It was an uncanny meeting, brought about only through words exchanged with a mutual acquaintance. At the time, all the man saw was another boring person. Oh, how very wrong he was…”

Sherlock looked at his hands, face blank, and continued, “Perhaps he wanted to show off to someone new, perhaps he knew – deep down – The Doctor would be helpful to him, or perhaps he simply wanted to scare him away with his necrophillious habits. Whatever the reason, he showed the man what he did for fun. He told him about how the suicides were murders, he took him running through the streets, he found the killer and even allowed The Doctor to see just how far he was willing to go, to be proven right.

“Not once did The Doctor flinch away, disgusted with his obsession. Not once did The Doctor call him a freak or imply there was something wrong with him. Rather, he offered praise and friendship. The Ridiculous Man, for the first time in a long time, was confused. He didn’t understand… anything. And for the sake of knowing, he allowed himself to be human. It was harder than he’d thought and a number of times he wanted to return to his cloud of indifference, but for the first time in his life, he was living and it felt… warm. Whenever things became too hard, he would look to The Doctor and be reminded of all the good there was in the world.

“His cases became adventures and he thought it the most wonderful thing, to share an experience with a friend. But of course, it had to end. Even the Ridiculous Man knew things would never stay perfect.

“The end – because there is always an end – came in the form of the Laughing Man. He was like the Ridiculous Man – or rather, how he was before he’d met The Doctor. He had no friends and took pleasure in coming out on top. He cared about nothing but the game, because that’s all life was to him. The Laughing Man had heard about how clever the Ridiculous Man thought he was and wanted to play against him. So he played. And the Ridiculous Man, being as stupid as he was, played too. The Doctor tried to tell him to stop, that it was dangerous, but he became obsessed with the game, with winning.

“His dedication, as such things sometimes do, led him to a high place. He thought he was winning. He thought he’d won. The Laughing Man laughed. The Ridiculous Man stood above him. The Laughing Man laughed. He asked the Ridiculous Man where he was going to go from there. The Ridiculous Man didn’t understand. The Laughing Man pointed down. Down, down, down and the Ridiculous Man saw The Doctor. His Doctor. Shouting to him, calling for him to come down. When the Ridiculous Man realised the trap, it was too late. The Laughing Man laughed as The Doctor died. But not just The Doctor. There was the Detective Inspector and the Landlady and the Kind One, too. Everyone the Ridiculous Man had come to love and care about was dead. And the Laughing Man laughed.

“The Ridiculous Man fell. He fell down and down and down and he hit the ground. But he got up again, because he knew what he had to do. It took him a long time. It took him years, but eventually, he caught up with the Laughing Man. He stood with the Laughing Man and they watched as everything crumbled to the ground. The Laughing Man didn’t laugh. Neither did the Ridiculous Man. They were so high, but they were falling. Falling, falling, spiralling down into the darkness.

“When he awoke, there was nothing. The Laughing Man was gone, but so was The Doctor. His Doctor. He wondered what it was all for and he felt the pain of loss. The Ridiculous Man returned to his cloud of indifference and renamed it his cloud of agony, for he no longer found happiness amongst the dead. The Ridiculous Man thought on what had happened, all he had lost and he cried, realising just how well his name suited him. For surely someone as intelligent as he claimed to be would have known to avoid all… this.”

Sherlock finished and met Willow’s eyes for a moment before looking away, blinking once or twice.

“It nearly happened,” he whispered lowly and Willow pushed the door open a few more centimetres, reaching for one of the hands limply lying on his knees.

“But it didn’t,” she stated softly, wrapping two fingers gently around his wrist. She felt his heartbeat, strong and alive and very much  _there._

He gave a slight smile and reciprocated the motion with the hand she grasped, turning the connection into a gentle monkey-grip as they ascertained each other’s existence. “No. I would never have let that happen,” he murmured after a stretch of comfortable silence.

Releasing his wrist, she pushed the door open further and crawled out. He wordlessly opened his arms and she fell into them, gripping the back of his white dress shirt.

“I made him a promise fourteen years ago, you know,” Sherlock murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest. “I promised that I would always be there for him and for Mary, so long as they live. It was the only vow I ever made and it is one I intend to keep.”

“Thank you, Sherlock,” was all she could bring herself to say, her voice muffled by his shoulder. “Thank you for everything.”


End file.
